Politicos who had hoped for a slow August have a lot more to think about than the Ames straw poll, which is coming up Saturday. (Mary Tiffany of the Iowa GOP has posted a great flier about it, btw.)

AP television writer David Bauder reports: “Four presidential candidates are lined up to visit Jon Stewart on ‘The Daily Show’ over the next three weeks as Comedy Central's satirical news review ramps up its 'Indecision 2008' coverage. Sen. Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat, is first up this Wednesday. Biden appeared on 'The Daily Show' last winter on the day he announced his candidacy. Republican John McCain makes his 10th appearance on Aug. 16, followed by another Republican, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, on Aug. 20. On Aug. 22, Democratic contender Barack Obama comes back to the show for a second time, his first as a declared candidate. … In a world of scripted politics, ‘The Daily Show offers candidates a chance to show irreverence and a sense of humor, but brings a risk if they bomb.'”

And this is interesting: “The ‘Indecision 2008’ banner is also a lucrative one for Comedy Central. The company sells advertising specifically for the political coverage on ‘The Daily Show’ and its spinoff, ‘The Colbert Report.’ Volkswagen, Apple and Subway have each signed up to be a part, in some cases at double the financial commitment they made in 2004. ‘The Daily Show’ will travel to the sites of both the Republican and Democratic conventions for a week of shows next summer. ‘The Colbert Report’ will take a road trip to South Carolina around that state's primary … .”

“In this long, hot campaign season, intimations of sexuality are sprouting like wildflowers along the road to the White House. Not that the commingling of sex and politics is anything new, but for what seems to be the first time in memory, voters are being confronted with questions that don't usually break the surface: Just how sexy is a first lady allowed to be? And what constitutes an appropriate display of affection between candidates and their spouses? With a nominating field full of older men and younger wives, experts say that a youthful, even sexy wife offers a none-too-subtle message about the vitality of the candidate. Not since Al Gore's ostentatious lip lock with Tipper at the 2000 Democratic National Convention has sexuality-as-strategy raised its head in quite so insistent a fashion.”

ALSO FOR YOUR RADAR SCREEN:

1) Did you know that a lot of people look at Drudge, and a lot of authors check their ranking on Amazon? We didn’t, either. Here are exposes of these shocking phenomena:

“Every day, journalists and media executives in newsrooms across the land hope they'll have something that catches Drudge's fancy — or, as he has put it, ‘raises my whiskers.’”

Frank Rich of The New York Times: “My attitude about it has definitely changed. And frankly, I think Drudge has changed, too. He's much more centrist…. I certainly look at the site in my idle moments.”

“Perhaps no one understands the Drudge Report's sway over this dedicated fan base better than Andrew Breitbart. An author and son-in-law of actor Orson Bean, Breitbart has described himself as a ‘raucous, opinionated, red meat-eating libertarian who refuses to be relegated to a conservative ghetto.’ He's also Drudge's silent partner in picking stories and writing headlines for the site from his home on Los Angeles' Westside. ‘It's a one-man operation with a second guy,’ he says, careful not to upstage the boss.”

“Breaking into Amazon’s top echelons and the ‘also bought’ recommendations can have a viral effect. ‘If you crack the top 50, even if it’s only for an hour, you’re significantly higher in all categories,’ said [Harry] Kirchner of Ingram Publisher Services. ‘You could probably go online at 4 a.m. and make any book you wanted a best seller for an hour.’”